Forum with Military Recruiters: Nov. 30th, Lincoln High - Ypsi

[noamnety]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 21, 2006

Students to Host Forum with Military Recruiters
Thursday November 30 from 7 to 9pm
Lincoln High Auditorium, 7425 Willis Rd., Ypsilanti

Members of Lincoln High’s Students Against War, with support from Michigan Peaceworks, to provide platform for questions regarding recruiters’ tactics.


Lincoln High students and parents and concerned community members will meet with military recruiters in a rare public forum next week. According to the agreement reached between Lincoln High Students Against War and the recruiters, the event is not intended as a platform to protest the war in Iraq, but to provide space for community members and students to question their local recruiters amid reports of recruiter misconduct in the national media.

The forum is especially relevant in light of an undercover report by ABC News released earlier this month that caught recruiters at ten different locations openly misleading students. One student asked a recruiter, "Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?" to which the recruiter replied, "No, we're bringing people back." Another recruiter told a student, "We're not at war. War ended a long time ago.”

In addition, a report issued in August 2006 by the Government Accountability Office, found that in fiscal years 2004 and 2005 “allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter wrongdoing increased, collectively, from 4,400 cases to 6,600 cases; substantiated cases increased from just over 400 to almost 630 cases; and criminal violations more than doubled from just over 30 to almost 70 cases.” More disturbingly, the report also stated that, “The department, however, is not in a sound position to assure Congress and the general public that it knows the full extent to which recruiter irregularities are occurring.”

The recruiters attending the forum will be Army Staff Sergeant Deryl S. Deveau and Air Force Staff Sergeant William L. Upshaw.

Lincoln High Students Against War is led by Mitch and Zach Goldsmith. The Goldsmith brothers founded the organization after attending a Youth Peace Summit sponsored by Michigan Peaceworks (michiganpeaceworks.org) on August 20, 2005, in Ann Arbor. The Summit brought together students from eleven high schools throughout Washtenaw, Oakland and Livingston counties.

Michigan Peaceworks, founded in 2001, promotes peace, democracy, civil rights, and civil liberties through community organizing, education and advocacy.


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